Iron Dynasty

It was another sunny day. As the greenery on both sides of the Xiaoqing River was dyed green, more and more people went outside the city to take a spring tour.

After Wang Xuan left yesterday, four out-of-town merchants and six out-of-town refugees were arrested that night in Qingzhou City.

In order to increase the labor force of the fiefs, Xiao Ming's immigrant policy seems to have become the target of all forces to install eyeliners.

For these restless refugees, according to the laws of Qingzhou, it is natural to be executed. At the same time, the Qingzhou newspaper reported this incident, so that the refugees who kept pouring into Qingzhou from other places should be taken as a warning.

It's just that Xiao Ming knows that absorbing refugees cannot avoid some people with bad intentions, but he can't avoid doctors because of this. After all, this refugee policy still has demographic dividends for Qingzhou in general.

The construction of Qingzhou City Road this time, many businessmen use cheap refugees who have no livelihood.

Your Highness, here we are.

Today is the day when the equipment department handed over the tool to the hydraulic lathe workshop. At the same time, the craftsmen of the lathe workshop will use the tool to produce the hollow barrel for the first time, and provide the final accessories for the flintlock gun.

Zhao Long led the horse, and Xiao Ming jumped off the horse. At this time, Zhang Liu had arrived in the workshop, and the craftsmen in the workshop had already installed the drill bit into the hydraulic drilling machine.

One end of this hydraulic drilling machine is a waterwheel. In the rapids of the Xiaoqing River, the waterwheel rotates rapidly and drives the circular stone disk fixed on the waterwheel to rotate. This stone disk acts as an inertia wheel, and in the middle of the stone disk It is the drill bit. The rotation of the stone plate drives the drill bit to rotate. This is the hydraulic drilling machine that Xiao Ming asked the craftsman to produce.

In the Ming Dynasty, the people already had this kind of drilling machine, and Xiao Ming just used it.

Your Highness, we are already trying to drill the barrel. Zhang Liu wiped off his sweat and said to Xiao Ming.

At the other end of the drill, a wooden support holds the steel rods sent from the steel mills. The production of such steel rods is very simple for today's steel workshops and can be made at any time.

Zhang Liu also stopped by to pick up a few and went to the lathe workshop.

The effect is not bad. At this time, the water conservancy lathe is rapidly rotating under the impetus of the rapid current. This natural force is much stronger than that of human power. The drill bit is effortless when drilling the steel rod, and it looks unstoppable.

Under the contact between the two, the drill has penetrated a little, but only a little.

According to the normal working efficiency of a hydraulic lathe, it would take at least six days to drill out a gun barrel. This was a record in the Ming Dynasty, but the high-quality knives provided by Xiao Ming could greatly reduce this time.

Because the tools of the water conservancy lathes in the Ming Dynasty were damaged very quickly, this was not as good as his.

According to his estimation, three or four days can be estimated. After all, the location of the workshop is the most turbulent section of the Xiaoqing River, and his knives still have advantages.

According to Xiao Ming's order, send as much as you grind. Zhang Liu sent the two drills that the equipment department grinded yesterday, plus the two that were grinded at night.

Four hydraulic drilling machines were started at the same time. After three or four days, he could have four barrels. If the barrels were made of rolled iron, this time would take a month.

That is, knives and hydraulic drills reduce the production time of gun barrels by one-tenth of the original.

His Royal Highness, you are really far-sighted. This drilling machine has been prepared for a long time, and now it is a drill bit. In this way, the production of the gun barrel is simple and labor-saving, and the position of the hydraulic drilling machine is fixed, so there will be no misalignment. Moreover, a craftsman can take care of four or five drill presses at the same time, and save manpower, which is really three birds with one stone. Zhang Liu looked at the current drill press and felt a sense of accomplishment in his heart.

Another advantage of the hydraulic drilling machine is the precision problem mentioned by Zhang Liu, which is prone to errors by manual work, and this is relatively much better.

Being praised by an honest craftsman like Zhang Liu, Xiao Ming smiled brightly, which showed that the craftsmen were very satisfied with the drilling machine, which also showed that he did not waste his efforts during this time.

With a smile, Xiao Ming said, Although it is much more convenient, the number has to keep up. There are only 200 drill presses in the workshop, but only four drill bits. You have to work harder.

Zhang Liu said: Your Highness, Chen Bingcao has already dispatched 500 people from the steel workshop, and the remaining drills will be filled soon.

Xiao Ming nodded, and his heart became more and more stable when he looked at the drilling machine that was constantly drilling steel rods.

Two hundred drill presses are enough for him now, one barrel in three days, he can get two thousand barrels in one month, and twenty thousand in ten months.

If he wants to, he can turn the Qingzhou Army from a cold weapon army to a hot weapon army before the end of the year.

And this is exactly his plan, just for this plan, he has to invest millions of silver taels, enough to consume his meager savings.

It's just that now he is in crisis on all sides and has to increase his investment in the army. Even so, he is trembling.

After all, he is dealing with a homeless nation with a population of 2 million with a population of 600,000 households in a fief.

The cavalry of this nation has lived on horses since childhood. Everyone is a very elite and experienced cavalry, and the barbarian cavalry is strictly disciplined and not afraid of death.

A well-disciplined group of seasoned cavalry was formidable even between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and the numbers of the enemy were plentiful.

Every time I think of this, Xiao Ming is always chilled.

The drilling machine was officially put into drilling, Xiao Ming went to the military workshop with satisfaction, and the last problem of the flintlock gun was solved.

However, there are still several problems to be solved below, one is the problem of the bayonet on the flintlock gun, and the other is the problem of the clearance of the flintlock gun.

Now that he has the experience of his previous life, he naturally won't make the mistakes that the flintlock gun made when he was fumbling forward after it was born.

At the beginning of the appearance of the bayonet, the handle of the bayonet was stuffed in the barrel, so that the bayonet could not be fired, and the bayonet could not be fired.

So in the face of the cavalry charge, the infantry became the lamb to be slaughtered by the cavalry.

It wasn't until the advent of the sleeve bayonet that changed this situation, which could be placed directly on the flintlock without affecting the firing.

So since he has mature experience, he naturally wants to avoid this mistake.

As for the second clearing issue, he decided to use iron clearing instead of the original wooden clearing.

Because the iron rod is not easy to break, this is conducive to improving the firing speed. The former Prussian army fired five bullets in one minute because of the first use of the iron rod and the proficiency of the soldiers.

The last one is the issue of ammunition, but this requires the cooperation of the military workshop and Lu Tong's gunpowder workshop.

As the ammunition for the flintlock gun, he plans to use oil-paper-wrapped bullets. The oil-paper bag is equipped with enough bullets and gunpowder to be fired at one time. When fighting, he only needs to bite it open and pour it in.